1. Field
The invention relates to curling irons, and in particular, to an improved curling iron having rotatable heating tips to adjust the shape of a hair contact surface between the heating tips.
2. Background
Heated curling irons are commonly used to style hair to a wide variety of styles, such as by curling hair to impart a curl that does not occur naturally occur in the hair, and by straightening hair to remove a kink or curl that does naturally occur in that hair. For example, a circular or semicircular-shaped curl can be created by wrapping hair about the outer surface of a heated cylindrically shaped curling iron tip. In addition, to straighten hair, heated flat iron tips can be pressed together to flatten wavy or curly hair. Moreover, it is often desirable when styling hair to both add curl to certain portions of hair, and straightening other portions of hair. In addition, it is also sometimes desirable when styling hair to first straightening a portion of hair to remove the hair""s natural curl and then to re-curl the straightened hair to the desired shape.
However, in order to style hair by both straightening and curling, generally, at least two irons are required. One iron is needed to straighten portions of the hair, and another curling iron is needed to curl portions of the hair, because current curling iron technology does not provide an adequate single tool for sufficiently and interchangeably straightening hair and curling hair. Therefore, what is needed is an effective and efficient iron for alternating between straightening hair and curling hair while styling hair.
A curling iron is provided having two handles coupled to two heating tips having non-symmetrical cross-sectional shapes with respect to their lengthwise axes. At least one of the heating tips is rotatably coupled to its handle to rotate along an axis lengthwise along the handle. Thus, by rotating the heating tips about axes along the handle length to orient the heating tip cross-sectional shapes with respect to each other so that various heating tip contact surfaces are selected, the curling iron can be used to (1) curl hair to different curl shapes and tightness, and (2) straighten or flatten hair.
For instance, embodiments include a generally oval-shaped first heating tip cross-section and a generally crescent-shaped second heating tip cross-section so that hair can be styled by (1) separating or pivoting the two heating tips of the curling iron away from each other, (2) closing the heating tips onto a portion of hair to press the hair in a contact surface between a first heating tip generally convex curve cross-section and a second heating tip generally concave curve cross-section, (3) separating the heating tips to release the portion of hair after the desired curl is achieved, (4) rotating the first heating tip about the handle axis so that a second different generally convex curve of the first heating tip is rotated towards the second heating tip, and (5) re-closing the heating tips on a portion of hair to press the hair in a different contact surface formed by contact between a second different generally convex curve of the rotated first heating tip and the second heating tip generally concave curve.
In addition, embodiments include generally flat shaped portions of the first and second heating tip cross-sections so that hair can be styled by (1) pressing hair between a first heating tip first generally convex curve and a second heating tip generally concave curve, (2) separating the heating tips to release the portion of hair curled, (3) rotating the first heating tip around a first rotational axis lengthwise along the first handle length so that a first generally flat portion of the first heating tip cross-section is rotated towards the second heating tip, (4) rotating the second heating tip around a second axis along the second handle length so that a second generally flat portion of the second heating tip cross-section is rotated towards the first heating tip, and (5) closing the heating tips on a portion of hair to flatten or straighten the hair by pressing the hair between the generally flat cross-sectional shape of the first heating tip and the generally flat cross-sectional shape of the second heating tip.
Moreover, embodiments of the invention include removable or demountable heating tip and power cord couplings to curling iron handles. For instance, the invention includes wires in the first and second handles with detachable connectors for demountably connecting to various heating tips having heating elements powered through the wires. Furthermore, the wires in the first and second handles can each have a demountable connector for connection to an electrical power cord which provides the power for the heating element attached to that handle.